Re: Amazon vs. Apple for music

Tim Smith wrote:
Anyone else tried Amazon.com MP3 downloads? iTunes has more songs, but Amazon has more DRM-free songs.

iTunes is more convenient, but only slightly more. Amazon provides a little download application you use. When you checkout after purchasing, you get a small file to download.

I have one-click purchasing enabled at Amazon, so its even easier. No checkout process to go through. The downloaded automatically adds the downloaded files into iTunes.

I will never buy lower quality DRM tunes from iTunes again.

I also from classical music from the new Deutsche Grammophon web shop. 320kpbs, DRM free MP3s.

You then open that with the downloader, and it goes and gets your purchases. It puts them in your iTunes library, and they have the album art. Functionally, the only difference I've noticed in iTunes after the songs are put in the library is that they don't show up in the "Purchased" automatic playlist, for obvious reasons.

iTunes search is a little more convenient, because of the way it shows suggestions as you type a song or artist name.

However, Amazon has one big advantage over iTunes: it is friendlier to those of us who have iPhones! Given a song available from both, even one without DRM from Apple, you can easily use Garageband to turn an Amazon purchase into a ringtone. Garageband won't let you do that with the song from iTunes.

My conclusion: for me, this gives Amazon the win. Here are the cases for me:

1. Both have, Apple has DRM:

I'll buy from Amazon to avoid DRM.

2. Both have, Apple does not have DRM:

I'll buy from Amazon, so that if I want to use part of the
song as a ringtone, it won't be another $0.99.

3. Only Amazon has:

Buy from Amazon.

4. Only Apple has:

Buy from Apple, but I might delay a while, to see if Amazon
get the song.

It's funny--if I didn't have an iPhone, I'd probably prefer, for DRM-free songs that are carried on both, to buy from iTunes.

Steve
.

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